“Are you jealous of him?” she asked as they walked away from Françoise’s building.
“Of course not. Who she sleeps with is none of my business.” He didn’t know that for sure, but Matthew had been lying on the couch bare chested, in jeans with bare feet, and looked like he had just gotten out of the shower when they arrived. “I just think it’s a little foolish to have people come and go in Damien’s life, who aren’t important to her.”
“How do you know he isn’t?” Lizzie asked with interest. He definitely sounded jealous to her. Françoise had been more gracious to Liz than Jean-Louis had been to the young male model. He’d barely spoken to him, and Françoise had thanked her for taking care of Damien and been warmer at their second meeting than the first.
“He’s not her type,” Jean-Louis answered somewhat tersely, and changed the subject. But Liz could see that he was annoyed for a while. He finally relaxed when they went back to his apartment. They both had calls to make for the shoots they were doing the next morning, and Liz was sorry they wouldn’t be working together. Hers was a big jewelry story that she had been setting up for months, and he was shooting the cover for the April issue of French Vogue.
They went downstairs to a nearby bistro for soup and a salad at dinnertime, and when they went back to his place afterward, they made love. His irritation over Françoise and the British model seemed to have dissipated again, and Lizzie realized that he was just being territorial. No one liked to be faced with their ex-lover’s current significant other, no matter how over it was. And she realized that their openness with each other, mostly because of Damien, was very French. But in any case Jean-Louis was in good spirits again when they went to bed that night, and they both fell asleep with their arms around each other. Jean-Louis had set the alarm for five A.M. They both had to be on their sets by six. And as she fell asleep, Liz found herself thinking about Damien. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Her heart ached at the life he led. He deserved so much more than he was getting. It almost made her wish that she and Jean-Louis would be together for a long time. And who knew, maybe they would. So far their days in Paris had been perfect.
Chapter 11
Liz was one of those meticulous editors who tried to anticipate every possible problem in advance. She hated surprises, particularly bad ones, and did everything to avoid them. But in spite of all her careful preparation, she had a dozen knotty problems to deal with on the set the next day. They were shooting outdoors on the Place Vendôme, and the first thing that went wrong was that it started to rain. They placed a huge tent over the models and filtered in artificial sunlight. It took them longer to set up, but it was manageable. They had set up heaters against the freezing cold. But one of the models said she was getting sick anyway and didn’t want to work.
The clothes in the shoot were secondary, and she and the stylist had chosen several simple black and white dresses by an American designer, two of which had gotten stuck in French customs and couldn’t be released, so they had to make do with what they had. And the stylist substituted a great-looking white shirt for one of the dresses, which worked. The whole focus of the shoot was the jewelry Lizzie was featuring, and that was their worst problem. All of the jewelers she had worked with to pull pieces had sent what she had chosen, but one of the more important jewelers had substituted several pieces she didn’t like. She called him immediately, and he apologized, but he had sold the pieces she had picked, and never told her. Worse yet, he was a designer in Rome so she couldn’t go back and find something else. She raced to two of the jewelers she was working with in Paris, during a break in the shoot, but she didn’t find anything there she liked, and she was short three or four pieces for the shoot. It was the kind of stress and aggravation she hated but that just couldn’t be avoided sometimes.
“Jesus, I should have read my horoscope for today,” Lizzie complained to the head stylist. She had no idea what to do. She reorganized the jewelry for several of the shots, but no matter how she rearranged it, she came up short, and this was a major story. The editor in chief in New York was not going to care that a model had been sick, two dresses were stuck in customs, and four major pieces of jewelry that they had planned to feature had been sold. Lizzie sat quietly in a chair at the edge of the set with her eyes closed, trying to figure it out. She was good at pulling rabbits out of hats, but this time she was coming up dry. One of the assistant stylists approached her after a few minutes, and Lizzie waved her away. She didn’t want to be bothered right now. Jean-Louis called her too during his own lunch break, and she told him she was up to her ass in alligators and she’d call him back. He said his shoot was going great, which only irritated her more. She had her own problems right now. As she turned off her cell phone, the young assistant approached her again.
“I’m sorry, Liz. I know you’re busy, but Alessandro di Giorgio is here.”
“Shit,” Lizzie said through clenched teeth. He was one of the important jewelers whose pieces they were using, and the last thing she needed now was a nosy jeweler who wanted to be sure that his work was the most important in the shoot. Some jewelers were like stage mothers, and she didn’t need one of them telling her what to do, or trying to sweet-talk her into giving him a better spot. “Can you tell him I’m off the set?” She had never met him personally and had dealt with him by e-mail, and all of his big pieces had been sent with armed guards from Rome.
“I think he knows you’re here,” the young stylist said apologetically. She was terrified and fresh out of school. This was her first big job. She knew Liz’s reputation as a perfectionist, and given everything that had gone wrong that morning, she was scared to death someone would take it out on her. Fashion was a high-tension business, and when things went wrong at a shoot, invariably shit rolled downhill. She was at the bottom of the hill. Liz looked at her in annoyance but was polite.
“I don’t have time to talk to him right now. I’m trying to figure out what the fuck to do about the three pieces I don’t have. Four, to be exact.”
“That’s what he wants to talk to you about. He said he had to come to Paris anyway, to see an important client, and he has several other pieces with him you haven’t seen. He stopped by the set, and I told him what happened, and he was wondering if you’d like to see what he’s got.” Lizzie stared at her in amazement and broke into a smile.
“There is a God. Where is he?” The young girl pointed to a tall blond man wearing a tie and a dark blue suit, carrying a large briefcase, and flanked by armed guards. He was looking straight at her with a cautious smile. As he approached her, he looked just like the photographs she had seen of him, and he was impeccably dressed.
“Miss Marshall?” he asked her quietly, as both guards stood slightly back but close enough to take action if he were attacked. “I understand you have a problem. I will be meeting with a client this afternoon, and I saw the shoot happening here. I thought I’d walk by. My client will be upset if I bring her fewer pieces, but she’ll never know what she never saw. And you can send them back to me later. I’ll tell her there was a delay in my atelier, if you select some of the pieces she was interested in.”
“There must be a patron saint for jewelry editors who are in a jam,” Liz said gratefully. She was a great admirer of his designs.
“I’d rather not show you the pieces here,” he explained. “I’m sure you understand. If you have a few minutes, I have a suite at the Ritz. We could go there.” The hotel was literally twenty yards away, as she looked at him with wide eyes. He spoke perfect English, with a slight Italian accent.